Sweeper
The following are AARs from Commander Sweeper Return to the other AARs 05 May 2010 - Operation: Choke Point Just had a flight right now, and man it all started out in planning as a simple strike mission, a 2 F-22 rating one so to speak. "Cake run" by most people. But I should have guessed already from takeoff that it was going to be anything but a cakerun. I took off and immediately I noticed something wrong as the F-22 BIOS system report kept running, clearly something was bust on the aircraft or was going bust. The report from the BIOS showed no damaged systems, but I have learned to not trust that one, so I check my regular display which now works smoothly, and there I see all systems EXCEPT LAN was damaged in the yellow range, which includes a fuel leak. Gamble or abort? I chose gamble and go for broke and try to strike the target and if my fuel supply is empty by the time I have delivered my payload I was preparing to use my Raptor as a Fox 4, that is, crash it into a building Kamikaze style. Regardless as I keep on cruising and keeping my NAV HUD on to watch my dwindeling fuel supply, I stumble across an enemy strike fleet, my 2 escorts start to engage but I get partially involved and spend my 4x AIM-120Rs 6x AIM-120Cs and the 2x Sidewinders to sabotage their SU-25s from reaching my airspace. As my escorts gets twangled up me and my 2nd strike fleet, a bunch of F-16s proceed to deal the damage to Eritrea. Now when I get close my target, I get use for some of my AGM-65 Mavericks, as there is a Vulcan and a Jernas that decides to try and nail a few holes in my bird, which by my definition is already hole ridden, and barely air worthy if you account for the high fuel consumption. After smacking up those two I waste some fuel as striking Army targets is on the Agenda making some cannon passes at some ground vehicles and rack up some extra campaign damage. I find my target afterwards and deliver the striking blow plus taking out a few factories as targets of opportunity on the 2nd return pass. Quickly I throw a glance at the fuel gauge, I still have some left and decides to gamble thinking the worst is behind me so I pull it into a climb and get as much altitude as possible to prepare for a 100 nautical mile glide from 50k feet. I also contacted the AWACS to request a divert airbase for this leaking bird. Done that before so that was only the slightly tricky part, and even though the Raptor is a magnificient fighter, well lets face it, it is a sucky glider . And when I think it cannot get any worse, well it just did. I threw a look down on my radar and now I notice 3 fully loaded 4 by 4 formations of fighters converging on the airbase I intend to land at, and to get there they have to fly past me, and I am gliding near stall speed to stretch out that altitude I got. Long story short, their escorts did spot me, but my wingman and some Mirages saved my butt partially, I got away with being fired 3x R73s at, and one even having lost lock impacted me so if my plane hadn't been enough banged up, it was by now a flying swiss cheese. And the really funny part? Now when the tank was empty, the BIOS reported a fuel leak The chasers lost interest in me after that and I could keep on recovering and cruising in towards the airfield, when I get there I notice they want me to do the approach in the opposite direction I am approaching. Naturally I just declare finals, and decide to go against the ATCs advice, after all if I tried treking around the airport I would stall out and crash. I quickly line up and my approach to the airport had been perfect, I came in prealigned with the runway so I had some luck, but that luck was short lived. As I try to extend the gear by hitting G there is no response, nothing is happening... My first thought past the cursing? "This is great!" in a sarcastic tone as well, time to do a belly landing. Strangely though my airbrake worked, and it didn't fail at all, but not that I needed it much either, just had to dip the airbrake to drop the speed below 200 Knots and down to the 180 range before I proceeded to ease it down on the runway, naturally as we know, belly landings are never smooth and I yank the stick slightly to clear the runway because taking off from a runway with a wrecked Raptor parked there is not good if you need to have a CAP flight or something else launched. The Raptor slides off the runway nicely onto the sand and spins out rally car style and my job was accomplished. My gambling and work paid off points wise, medal wise I got a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart